It’s been 5 years since Alexandra Bracken released Lore, a fantasy book with a pretty clever foundation: as punishment for a past rebellion, some Greek Gods are turned mortal for one week every seven years, in an event called the Agon. That’s not all, of course. During that week, the mortal bloodlines of Greek heroes like Perseus, Odysseus, and Achilles hunt the gods, and if they kill one, they assume the gods’ immortality and powers.
Think of it as Greek mythology meets The Hunger Games. Intrigued? You should be. And if you haven’t read it, you’re in luck. This September, Hyperion is releasing a special collectible deluxe edition of Lore to celebrate the book’s 5th anniversary, complete with an exclusive new epilogue.
Fangirlish had a chance to talk to Bracken in preparation for the re-release, and we discussed not just the book, where the characters are, but also the latest news in the adaptation.
What’s it like seeing Lore get a new collectible edition, and being able to add an epilogue to it? These days, people appreciate the visuals of a book so much!
The new deluxe edition is absolutely stunning, isn’t it? I was so excited that my publisher was willing to revisit it to celebrate its fifth anniversary, and I knew I wanted to do something really special to thank readers for all of the love and support they’ve shown the book over the years! This epilogue answers a few questions readers have had about the characters and expands the world a bit—but really, it was just so fun to be able to spend time in Lore’s head again.
The book released in January of 2021, when publishing was still in the throes of working through pandemic shortages and overloaded printers and had only just begun to release books with special edges and the like. Back then, it was a fight just to get the book reprinted, so I’m really grateful we’ve been able to put such a beautiful edition out into the world.
What was your inspiration for Lore? Do you feel like the story that you envisioned was what you put on paper, or is there something else you wanted to add? Is that why we get the epilogue?
Lore was really born out of the conversations surrounding the #MeToo movement online and the way culture was revisiting stories and history through that lens. I’ve loved Greek mythology since I was a kid, and even then, a part of me was always outraged over the way women were portrayed and punished in the stories for expressing their humanity, whether that was through lust, ambition, agency, or pride. I’d wanted to write something rooted in the mythology that addressed it for years, but never felt like I had the right story until this one. And, really, the slightly unexciting match that ignited it was looking at my running list of ideas and realizing I could very easily combine a modern-day Greek mythology story with a competition framework.
With the epilogue, there were a few questions I knew I wanted to answer for readers, but I also wanted to show how the characters were doing and hint at ways the story world could potentially expand. (No plans for it currently, but it’s fun to ponder!) I personally love an open ending—and LORE’s ending in earlier drafts was even more open, if you can believe it—but, as the reaction to the ending has proven, not every reader does! While I was able to write the story I envisioned, it definitely felt like a gift to give everyone a little more resolution there.
It’s been 5 years since Lore. Where are these characters five years after the end of the book?
What’s interesting is that while it’s been five years for us, it’s only been six months since the end of the book for the characters! Rather than pick up immediately where we left off, I wanted to show how the characters are—and aren’t—processing the rather traumatic events of the books, and give everyone a status update on the relationship between Lore and Castor, as well as Miles and Van.
What was most interesting to me was acknowledging that, in ending the Agon, Lore essentially ended the hunters’ world and way of life. The fallout of that has proven to be very dangerous—she’s damaged the hunters’ pride and left many, including Lore herself, feeling like they now lack a purpose in life. There’s a lot of anger, as you can imagine, but there’s also greed in play, too: factions of the former hunter families are scrambling to find and keep the remaining relics that possess power or significance, even as Lore and the others try to return them safely to Greece.
There’s been a wave of YA adaptations, mainly in the romance genre. Why do you think we haven’t seen as many fantasy ones? And what are you hoping to see next from this wave of adaptations?
I think, practically speaking, it really comes down to the financial component. A YA contemporary romance can be filmed with a much, much smaller budget than a fantasy adaptation, which requires special effects, more elaborate costuming, larger casts, fight scenes, etc. So, I think fantasy adaptations are often seen as riskier ventures, even if they do have loyal followings. I know that one of the reasons The Darkest Minds ended up getting adapted was because they were able to do it for a very reasonable budget!
I would love to see more YA fantasy and science fiction make its way onto both big and small screens—there’s such a wealth of wonderful material in the YA space. My biggest hope is that Hollywood can recognize that they don’t need to tweak these stories to be more broadly appealing to viewers. YA stories are emotionally resonant for everyone because we all move through that phase of life, and the books are often far more complex and nuanced than they’re given credit for.
Lore as a film. How does that feel? What can you tell us about the development of the adaptation? How involved are you?
I think Lore would make for an absolutely epic, action-packed film, and I would love to see it come to fruition! Maybe there’s a bit more interest in adapting Greek mythology projects now that The Odyssey has been such a hit?
The last update I had was that they’re hard at work on another draft of the script, so it’s still moving along through development. The Darkest Minds was in the works for just as many years, so I’m still very hopeful it’ll get there. I’m not involved with the project in any meaningful way right now, but I appreciate them keeping me in the loop and leaving the door open for me to weigh in on everything as things progress. We’ll see—fingers crossed!
While I loved Lore, I don’t particularly like having to buy another (expensive) copy of a book I already own just to read an epilogue. It’d be nice if the epilogue could be released as a (reasonably priced) digital download.